Wednesday night, Billy Preston's mother, Nicole Player, said she was as in the dark as anybody about what was going on with her son and the NCAA.
In early November, Preston, a presumptive starter at power forward for Kansas, was involved in a single-car accident on campus in Lawrence, which triggered an investigation into what Jayhawks head coach Bill Self described as a "clearer financial picture" on the vehicle.
Nearly two-and-a-half months had passed without any new information coming to light. Nothing about the car, nothing about the investigation. Nothing, even, about Billy Preston himself, the only child of Player, a self-described Los Angeles street kid who gave birth to Preston at age 19 and watched him grow into a prolific artist, a skilled skateboarder and a McDonald's All-American basketball player bound almost certainly for the NBA draft after a year at Kansas.